In the Darkness
by stars91
Summary: In the darkness lurks unspeakable evil, but every once in awhile the darkness holds the light and love to set you free. Dean/OFC


**Title:** In The Darkness

**Disclaimer:** Nothing belongs to me, just playing in the sandbox.

**Pairing:** Dean/OFC

**Summary:** In the darkness lurks unspeakable evil, but every once in awhile the darkness holds the light and love to set you free.

**Prompt:** A black car roared to a stop outside, engine dropping down to a purr.

**Words: **2,001**  
**

A black car roared to a stop outside, engine dropping down to a purr. Then in the next moment shuts off completely. She counts down in her head, three…two…one…the unmistakable sound of a car door squeaking open and then slamming shut in one fell swoop. More counting, five…four…three…two…one…then boots scuffing their way across the wooden porch; stopping short, just outside the front door.

The keys jingle together as the car's driver struggles to work the sometimes tricky lock. She lays in bed, listening quietly to the sounds she is so familiar with now. Try as he might to be quiet, let her get her "beauty rest"; it just never seems to work for him. He is all stealth and silence during a hunt, she knows, she's seen that first hand, but when the hunting is over and the only thing on his mind is a hot shower and a warm bed with an even warmer body to snuggle close to, careful and quiet he is not.

The smile he told her again and again that he loved with all his heart crept onto her face as she listened, breathlessly awaiting his arrival in bed next to her. She would have liked to have gone to him now, met him half way to the shower, help him peel his clothes off but that task wasn't as easy as it had once been. Hunting was a dangerous way of life, they had both known that, lived it from childhood on but it was only in times like these when her world was no longer guns and knives; Latin and holy water but a walking stick and eternal night that it really sunk in. If she hadn't had him, she wouldn't have survived; she would have ended it a long time ago.

He was her light in her eternal darkness, warming her heart like the sun does the earth.

She'd always heard when you lose one sense; the others become more sensitive, finely tuned to make up for what you no longer possessed. She was certainly a believer. To anyone else, the carefulness with which he eased the front door shut and laid his heavy bag of weapons down on the couch in the living room would have went unheard; unnoticed. But not to her. It was if she were standing in the living room watching him, only not.

The nights when he didn't come home to her; couldn't because of distance were terrifying. Knowing what she did and now being able to hear all those things that go bump in the night but not being able to see them was her own personal Hell. She'd never tell him though, never let on because if she did she knew he'd quit hunting and that wasn't an option.

He and his younger brother had been raised to do this; it was their 'family business,' as it had been hers. She lived every day with the guilt of no longer being able to save anyone herself, or save him for that matter if the need arose. He just laughed at the suggestion, that she wasn't able to save him anymore. He had been hunting long before they met and had managed to do okay for the most part, besides his brother was normally with him so there was no need for her to worry. She did save him he told her, every night when he came home and slid into bed next to her, she saved his soul…gave him new life and reminded him why the life he led was worth it.

She was brought out of her musings when the shower turned off and the counting in her head started again….twenty-seven…twenty-six…twenty-five…twenty-four…it hadn't taken her nearly as long as she would have thought to master all of the sounds and the timing to the next one after the accident.

Five…four…three….two…

"How'd it go?"

She feels him slide into bed behind her but doesn't actually relax until his strong arm is draped across her abdomen.

"Oh you know, few rounds of rock salt, a couple of exorcisms in Latin sprinkled with a little holy water….same 'ol, same 'ol," he teases before kissing her on the temple.

This was Dean's usual answer to Kate's usual question. It had been the only way he'd found to lighten her anxiety when he first got home after a hunt. She would never come straight out and say it; he knew she never would. It just wasn't in her nature, but he knew, could feel, how tightly she was wound.

The first time Dean had used that line on her after a hunt; a hunt she could tell had taken a toll on him both physically and mentally, she'd not been amused. She was still a hunter after all, still knew the ins and outs of what he'd just went through so why he didn't just come out and tell her about it she didn't know and didn't care. All she knew was that he was holding back and it pissed her off.

Thinking back to those first few hunts after her accident, it was amazing he'd put up with her. It would have been easier on a lot of levels for him just to say 'screw it' and leave for good. Most hunters would have. But Dean wasn't most hunters, he was special and although it probably took her longer than most to figure that one out, she finally did and accepted his protective actions for what they were….love. Love for her and love for what she lost; something he could only imagine. And when they finally had that talk, she understood.

"Three ghosts, two demons and a priest? Wow, you were busy," she teased back. She changed this one up sometimes; couldn't let him get bored with her now could she?

Dean smiled and pulled her in closer to his body, "I try."

Kate giggled as she tilted her head so that he could reach her lips this time. It was another one of those little things that they did to express their love for one another. One of those little things that didn't include actually saying the words, because if either of them were honest with themselves they'd both admit they just couldn't say it. Certainly not because they didn't love one another, because they did. But they had both been raised by hunters, had both experienced deep hurt and loss of loved ones and had both placed a wall around their heart.

It wasn't until that night when they'd each come within a fraction of a second from blasting the other full of rock salt that the first bit of that wall started to crumble. And it was on a night like this, when Kate was being a little reminiscent about their past that she'd ask him about it.

"Do you remember the first night we met?"

Dean paused, allowing her to turn over in his arms so that she was now facing him. He gave her the extra space she liked so that she could run her free hand over his face as he talked to her. The first time she'd asked to do this it had almost broken his heart; he struggled to keep the tears out of his eyes and what he hoped would pass as a smile on his face. As time wore on and this became their ritual, he got used to it; cherished it even. It was her way of seeing him.

"Poltergeist in Lexington," Dean answered with a smile, the image of his wife that night flashing through his thoughts.

She'd been all legs and denim that night. She stood a good four inches shorter than him, but those long, lean legs were what pretty much everyone noticed about her right off the bat. She was dressed in loose fitting Levi's and a tight fitting cream colored Henley with a well worn jean jacket and some ass kicking Justin's topping it off. Her long auburn hair flowed freely over her shoulders and her hazel eyes seemed to almost glow in the moonlight that streamed in through the busted out window.

"Okay wise guy, so you remember what we were hunting and where…how 'bout what I was wearing?"

Dean tried hard to suppress a laugh.

"What?" Kate asked; brow furrowed. One thing about Dean was that reading his facial expressions was sometimes half the battle and although her hands went along way in helping her "see" him, it wasn't always enough.

"Nothing."

Kate let out a 'humpf', "I don't believe your 'nothing'. You don't remember do you?"

Dean gently took Kate's wondering hand in his own, moving it down his body until it rested directly over his beating heart, "I remember it like it was yesterday, I was just picturing you that night, that's all. It just struck me funny that you would ask that question right when I was thinking about it….about you."

Kate grinned again, the grin that made Dean fall in love with her to begin with, "I always have had that 'Twilight Zone' affect on you."

"Realizing that you were a human and not some obnoxious poltergeist wasn't a 'Twilight Zone moment'," Dean replied seriously, "it was my awesome hunting skills."

"You mean like your awesome nun-chuck skills or your computer hacking skills?"

"Hey, don't forget my awesome bow hunting skills!"

Kate laughed this time, "Those don't count."

"Why?"

"Because you actually have them! This is only the Napoleon skills list."

Dean snorted, "So how do you know that I don't have awesome nun-chuck skills? Or computer hacking skills for that matter? Huh?"

Kate moved her hand back up Dean's body until she could feel his face again, when she was certain she had a good judgment as to where his lips were, she leaned up and kissed him. She was usually close enough to the target to please herself, this time was no exception.

"Because I know you, and although the nun-chuck skills are a minute possibility, I know without a doubt there is absolutely no computer hacking skills in this body whatsoever. That's a Sam skill, not a Dean skill."

"And how would you know what a Sam skill is anyway?" Dean asked, mock accusation in his tone.

"Jen says that Sam has lots of skills," Kate returned playfully.

Dean acted shocked, "You mean to tell me that my wife and Sam's would be wife if he would just quit balking and walk her down the aisle already girlfriend talk about us behind our backs?"

Kate laughed mischievously but did not confirm nor deny.

"Well, Mrs. Kathryn Elizabeth Winchester, lets see if we can show you some new skills to brag to Jen about….shall we? I can't have my little brother one upping me now can I?"

Kate leaned in to meet Dean in a playful yet passionate kiss. Although she and Jen never talked about their sex lives with the brothers Winchester, it never hurt for Dean to think they did. He was always quite inventive on the nights she insinuated that his little brother was rumored to be the real Casanova.

Breathless from the kiss, Kate did her best to get out a response, "I….think you're gonna…..have to…..try really, really hard to….out do little….Saaaaaaaaaaamy."

Kate was certain she hit the highest pitch possible with Sam's name when Dean did that thing to her ear that always sent her straight into orbit. She was fairly certain he knew that she was just playing him but she didn't care and she didn't really think he did either. It was a good distraction from the realities of their life. Dean was able to get away with never really telling her how he'd almost gotten himself killed yet again during a hunt, and it allowed her to forget the darkness she lived in every day.

Sometimes in the darkness lurks unspeakable evil, but every once in awhile the darkness holds the light and love to set you free.

The End.


End file.
